The Heat Is On Read online

  He was on his back, far arm stretched above his head, the other wrapped around her. His face was turned toward hers, eyes closed, jaw whiskered in dark shadow. He looked younger, and extremely relaxed, as if maybe someone had stolen his bones, too, and the thought brought a knowing smile to her mouth. She’d put him in that state.

  She could stare at him all night. Except she couldn’t. She had to go.

  He shifted, and drew in a deep breath. Eyes still closed, his arm tightened on her, and he pressed his face to the top of her head. “Mmm. Good way to wake up.” His voice was sleep roughened and sexy as hell vibrating in her ear.

  “Don’t get stirred up,” she said. “I have to get to the shop.”

  “Too late.”

  She crooked her neck and look down the length of him. Yep, it was too late. He was stirring. Everywhere.

  She watched as the sheet became an impromptu tent, and because she couldn’t help herself, slid a hand beneath the fabric to wrap her fingers around him.

  He groaned and covered her hand with his. “I like where this is going.”

  “It’s not going anywhere. I have to start baking or we won’t have anything to sell today. I’m not sure we’ll have customers after all that’s happened, but I know Willow is going to be hoping for the best.” But because she couldn’t help herself, she shoved the sheet free and bent over him, kissing him on the very tip of his most impressive erection.

  It bobbed happily.

  She gave one last sigh of regret and slipped out of his arms and off the bed.

  “That’s just mean,” he said as she padded off to his bathroom. “Cruel and unusual punishment.”

  She was smiling when she turned on his shower, smiling when she used his soap and pressed her nose into her own arm to get as close to his scent as possible, smiling when she felt the door open behind her.

  And then she was pulled back against a solid, hard chest. “No funny business,” she warned him. “If you behave, I’ll meet you for lunch, but for right now, I’ve got to go. Just cleaning up here, that’s it, then I’ll call a cab.”

  “Hmm,” he said noncommittally as his hands slid up her soaped-up, slicked-up body and cupped her breasts, his fingers grazing her nipples.

  Her entire body quivered. “I mean it, Jacob.”

  “Fine. We’ll do lunch.”

  “You mean, we’ll do each other.”

  He grinned against her skin. “That, too, if you’d like. I’ll come to the shop, pick you up and feed you first. Okay?”

  “Mmm.” It was all she could manage with one of his hands on her breast, his other heading south—

  She dropped the soap.

  “Uh-oh,” he murmured silkily. “Better get that.”

  When she bent over to get the soap, he sucked in a breath and gripped her hips. She felt him hard against her ass. “Jacob—”

  “Just pretend I’m not even here,” he said, both laughter and arousal in his voice.

  “I’m only cleaning up,” she repeated weakly, her body on high orgasm alert. Good Lord, it was crazy. They’d had each other so many times last night she’d lost count. How could she still want him like this? “I’ve really got to get going…”

  “Oh, Bella.” His voice was low and full of sexy promise. “You’re going to get going. And coming…”

  The words themselves almost edged her over. “The shop—”

  “You’re going to be late.” He took the soap from her and directed her hands to the tile in front of her, gently kicking her feet farther apart as though he was about to frisk her. Then he slid a hand down her ass and groaned again. “Very late.”

  LATER THAT MORNING, JACOB was at his desk handling paperwork while reliving the morning’s shower—look at him, multitasking—when Ethan stopped by.

  “Just visited your girlfriend,” Ethan said, annoying smirk in place. “She has the same just-been-thoroughly-laid look on her face that you do.”

  Jacob leaned back, lacing his hands over his abs. He was feeling far too mellow to put his fist in Ethan’s mug, probably due to the just-been-thoroughly-laid feeling that was indeed running through his veins today.

  Ethan dropped into a chair and stretched his legs. “We’ve put every spare man we’ve got on this case.”

  “I know. We’re going to get him now.”

  Ethan nodded. “I’ve interviewed Willow, Trevor, all the neighboring shop owners and their employees, and all of the men Bella dated through the singles club.”

  “Except me.”

  “Except you. You haven’t been contacted by the club since the date, right? Or by any of the other participants, other than Bella?”

  “Nope.”

  “And no sense of being watched in any way?”

  “No.”

  Ethan nodded. They both knew that once a cop, always a cop. If someone had been watching him, chances were Jacob would have noticed.

  “Your club date with her was different than the others in two ways,” Ethan said. “With everyone else, they had a meal or a drink, that was it. But with you, you changed venues and did quite a bit.”

  “Yeah. What’s the second way it was different?”

  Ethan waggled a brow. “You’re the only one who slept with her. Did you know that was forbidden?”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Okay, it wasn’t,” Ethan agreed. “But it was discouraged. So the question is, why you? Why did she sleep with you?”

  “Thanks, man.”

  Ethan grinned. “I’m actually serious. It was out of character for her.”

  Truth was, Jacob didn’t know why Bella had slept with him. All he knew was that from the moment they’d met, there’d been a spark—a physical, visceral spark—and it was still there, every time he saw her. Every.

  Single.

  Time.

  “You’ve kept seeing her,” Ethan said. “Not that anyone could blame you. But she hasn’t made a move to see any of the others again.”

  “So?”

  “So are you exclusive already?”

  “And that’s pertinent to the case how?”

  “Oh, it’s not. Just wondering what that sweet little thing sees in you. I mean, look at her. She’s warm and funny and sexy as hell. You on the other hand are grumpy, usually scowling, and I’m having a hard time imagining you bringing the funny or the sexy.” He rose lithely to his feet when Jacob’s eyes narrowed, and wisely moved to the door. “Ethan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I can’t see a rhyme or reason to the order in which the eight of us are being targeted.”

  Ethan shook his head. “Me, neither. Just be careful out there,” he warned. “And though I don’t believe she’s the target, I’ve advised Bella to do the same.”

  At lunchtime, Jacob shoved the reports he’d been working on aside and left the building. He was halfway to Edible Bliss when he was called to check on a material witness for a case he was building involving the identity-theft ring.

  Thanks to an uncooperative witness and an unhappy victim, by the time Jacob was back on the road again, it was nearly two.

  Bella had probably eaten lunch without him long ago.

  Still, he headed over there, needing to see her. It had nothing to do with his own emotions and feelings, he assured himself, and everything to do with what Ethan had said.

  She needed to be careful.

  Something bad had happened each day for three days running, and he just wanted to lay his eyes on her—and maybe his hands—and know she was okay.

  Over the years he’d had hundreds of cases, and had met countless people he’d worried about in the scope of the job. But this wasn’t just the job. This was personal.

  Almost too much so.

  He parked his bike in the back lot next to the squad car assigned to the shop, nodding to the cop inside. It was Tom Kennedy, a rookie of less than a year. They spoke for a minute, and when Tom said he hadn’t had lunch yet, Jacob told him to take off and grab something, that he’d watch the pl